


Answers To What Comes Next (And How To Like It)

by Belle



Category: Love Actually (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:44:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belle/pseuds/Belle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They dropped Harry off at Heathrow at half past ten on a Saturday morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Answers To What Comes Next (And How To Like It)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [51stCenturyFox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/51stCenturyFox/gifts).



> Title from "How To Like It" by Stephen Dobyns.
> 
> Daniel and the internet pop-ups; Bernie and the farts; and Karen at the art gallery with Mia, Harry, and Mark are all included on the dvd as deleted scenes.
> 
> Thanks to my awesome beta, [name redacted until after the reveal].

They dropped Harry off at Heathrow at half past ten on a Saturday morning. He had offered, hesitantly, to make his own way there, and Karen’d found it a tempting offer, not least because she hated the traffic that surrounded Heathrow. Ultimately she decided not to deviate from their usual routine as there’d been enough walking around on eggshells lately and no need to alert the children. So all four of them had gotten in the car.

After saying goodbye before the security checkpoint, they’d stayed to watch Harry’s progress through the line. Just before he’d made it to the front, he’d turned around to look at them. Daisy had waved and then blown him a kiss. Karen wasn’t sure what that look had meant, what he’d been trying to say.

Pulling out of Heathrow felt like the first time she could breathe again.

 

* * *

 

Daniel carefully brought the two glasses of red wine into the room, handing Karen’s off to her as he sat down next to her on the ugly striped sofa that Jo had hated. It still made her sad, how empty the house felt without Joanna in it.

“How’s Sam?” she asked.

“Good, good. We had Christmas lunch at his grandparents’ house.”

“How was it?”

He shrugged. “Much as you’d expect. Subdued, especially when compared with past years. They were very proud of Sam and his musical debut – we watched the video at least five times.”

“But of course.” She took another sip of her wine.

“The only awkward moment was when Matthew asked Sam if he’d been spending much time on the internet lately. Luckily, Sam said no, that he’d been too busy with the drums.”

“Sorry, why is Sam’s internet activity all of a sudden a concern?”

“Well...” Daniel began and out came the story of how he’d been – innocently – looking up Claudia Schiffer on the web and one thing led to another, some rather explicit pop-ups had appeared on the screen, Matthew had popped round and chosen that exact moment to want to show him something golf-related on the net, and in the end Sam had taken the blame and ended up a hundred pounds richer.

Karen howled with laughter at the conclusion of the story. “Oh, Daniel. I wish I could have seen your face. That’s why I gave you those links, you silly bastard!”

“I know, I know, no one to blame but myself.”

“You boys,” she mock-chided. “Did I tell you about Bernard and his Christmas wish?”

“No.”

“They had to write an essay for school on your one wish for Christmas. My darling boy chooses to write about how he would like to be able to see everyone’s farts.”

Daniel chuckled. “You certainly can’t fault his imagination, Karen.”

“Agreed. Which is what I told him, after we were made to meet with the headmistress.”

“You and Harry were both called in?”

“No, Bernie and I. Harry was...busy.” She’d forgotten that was the same day she’d gone with Harry to check out the venue for his office’s Christmas party, the day she’d met Mia for the first time. Karen had liked her, then. It wasn't until Karen had seen Harry dancing with Mia during the party that she'd reassessed her initial impression of Mia.

“Karen sweetheart,” Daniel said tenderly, “why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

She put her head on his chest as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. They’d sat like this many times over the course of Joanna’s illness, but now it was only Karen who needed comforting. Without looking at his face, Karen slowly told him everything.

 

* * *

 

It had surprised Karen how quickly she got used to having Harry gone. A fortnight had seemed like a long time, when the business trip had first been discussed. Now, though, part of her wished that he’d be gone for longer. She has her daily routine: laundry to do, meals to cook and to clean up after, tons of errands to run in order to keep the household running smoothly.

Currently Daisy was curled up in a chair, reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Bernard was upstairs in his room, playing video games. Bernie’d toned down the attitude recently and Karen was worried about how much he’s picked up on the tension between his parents.

When she'd opened the box, Karen had been thrilled: Harry had finally bought her something extravagant and special instead of something practical. The fact that he had picked a necklace with a heart on it - for someone else - had hurt her deeply. But of all the things to consider, perhaps the biggest was that she doesn’t know if she could forgive Harry for being careless with the stability of their children’s lives.

 

* * *

 

Karen was walking down Harris Street, peering at door numbers and pulling the piece of paper on which she scribbled down Natalie’s address out of her pocket when she collided with another woman, upsetting her own handbag and spilling its entire contents out onto the pavement.

“I’m so sorry,” she began to apologise, but the sentence didn’t make it out of her mouth, just hung out in the air as _I’m so_ because the woman she’d knocked into was Mia. Karen would be damned if she ever apologised to her.

She has thought of hundreds of questions for Mia, who is young and beautiful and who, Karen imagined, could have any man she wanted. But at the moment, Karen couldn’t think of any of them. She just stood there, dumbly, looking at Mia.

What finally came out of Karen’s mouth was:

“I have two children.”

It wasn’t all she wanted to say, but it must have been enough because Mia dropped her gaze and hurried past Karen. Karen half-turned to watch her hurry away and saw Natalie standing in the doorway of her house.

Karen knelt to gather the contents of her bag. It was, she thought somewhat hysterically, an apt metaphor for what Mia had done to her life but also for what Karen herself was now forced into doing: picking up the pieces.

“Here, let me help you,” Natalie said as she joined Karen on the sidewalk.

Together they made quick work of it, then went inside the house. Natalie took them back to the kitchen, moving to put the kettle on.

Karen, while trying not to stare, had been taking in her surroundings. The night of the concert was all such a blur to her now and she hadn't gotten a solid read on Natalie.

“Everyone else is out,” Natalie said. “Do you – do you want to talk about it?”

Karen didn’t, not really, but Natalie was looking at her with wide eyes so full of compassion that the whole damn story just spilled right out of her.

When she’d finished, drying her eyes carefully with a tissue, Natalie launched into her own story, about her ex-boyfriend who was the reason she’d moved back home.

“Right,” said Karen briskly. “Enough about all that. Tell me how you met my big brother. I want to know every single detail so I can sell your story to the tabloids.”

 

* * *

 

Two days later, Karen, Bernie, and Daisy were officially invited to tour Number 10 by the Prime Minister. Unsurprisingly, Uncle David passed the kids off to Terrence, the butler, for the actual tour.

“Now pay attention because I will be quizzing you once you’ve finished.”

“Yes, Prime Minister,” Daisy said, neatly copying the Downing Street aides they'd overheard earlier, and Bernie threw them a sloppy salute.

David took Karen’s arm, pulled her into his office, and shut the door behind them.

“Wow,” Karen said, slowly turning in a circle to gaze at every aspect of the room.

He perched carefully on the edge of his desk. “Karen, sister mine, remembering that I am Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, I hereby order you to tell me what’s wrong.”

“David, you’ve seen me for maybe five minutes. How can you tell that anything is wrong?”

“Natalie told me you were upset the other day, but she wouldn’t tell me why.” David frowned at her. “But even if she hadn’t, I would be able to tell that something was up. You put on a good show, but you’re not happy. It's your eyes.”

If anyone could tell that after less than ten minutes with her, it would be her big brother. “It goes both ways, you know,” she said. “I can always tell when you are lying during a press conference.”

“True,” he said as he leaned forward, taking her hands into his.

Really, she told herself, having told the story twice already, it should be easy to tell it a third time and without tearing up.

It wasn’t.

“So,” David said when she’d finished, “he left the country before I could kick his ass.”

“David, I’ve seen you fight. It’s not pretty.”

Pretending she hadn’t spoken, David continued, “You three are always welcome to move in here with me.”

“I don’t think poor Terrence would survive that.”

 

* * *

 

Too soon, Karen found herself preparing to return to Heathrow. The children were excited for Harry’s return, Daisy so much so that she’d taken the initiative to make a ‘welcome home’ poster and Bernie had even helped. They were also excited for the presents he’d be bringing back, though Karen feared there would be more than usual.

She was grateful that no one – not Daniel, not Natalie, and especially not David – had asked what she was going to do. At the end of their visit, David had hugged her and whispered in her ear that he would support her, no matter what, and Karen’d had to turn away so the kids wouldn’t see her face.

As she followed the children out the door, Karen grabbed her coat, her scarf, and her keys. She had a thousand things that needed to get done today and picking Harry up was just the first.


End file.
